Weekend Love: 12/11/11

This is the first of hopefully many weekend posts. The plan is to recap what I’ve shared each week… in case you missed anything but we know that shouldn’t happen since you’re subscribed to my feed via a feed reader or e-mail right? If not – run, don’t walk (with your fingers of course) and take care of that. You don’t want to miss out on any goodies. And remember to join me on Facebook while you’re at it. Not only is it a great place to keep up to date on things… there’s lots of opportunity to interact and other fun stuff! All of that subscribing and Facebook ‘like’-ing can be done with those handy ‘buttons’ up on the right side of the page. Easy peasey.

Along with a recap of my own posts, I hope to share some of my favorite recipes seen elsewhere. And what would a recap be without sharing some goings on in my life outside of blogging?

I hope you enjoy it! So without further ado…

In case you missed it:Gingerbread cheesecake – This is a creamy gingerbread cheesecake with gingerbread cookie dough crust and served with cute mini gingerbread cookies. Serve with optional whipped cream or ice cream. This is kind of a must for December baking if you love gingerbread recipes.

Reindeer cookie fail – These seemingly cute cookies were a royal pain in the butt. I’ve since been given great suggestions on using either chocolate or icing to secure the nose, eyes and antlers in place. That would definitely prove to be an easier method than this. I’ve given up on these cookies for this year though.

Cheddar ale soup – Fake ginger – Lately I’ve been in search of fun new soup and stew type recipes to try. I think this one would be perfect to try out on the Mr. Bonus… it’s served in a pretzel bowl!

Tangled Christmas lights cupcakes – I am baker – I love how cute these cupcakes are and how they bring back awesome memories of growing up… lights tangled to the max. Have I ever mentioned how much I love frosting. I totally want to lick the frosting right off the top of the cupcakes. Yeah. I’m that kid.

My life:
I didn’t do any special baking this week even though I really meant to. Sometimes the weather makes it impossible. Sometimes it’s the kids making it impossible. Then there’s the issue of the reindeer cookies putting me in a funk.

We ate this one night… and several times as leftovers for lunch. But it wasn’t as good as leftovers without the added crunch of crushed chips I usually like to add. We had our first chicken pie in ages! It was a total cheater (aka frozen) chicken pie but I don’t care. It’s delicious. Let’s not forget lots of apple cider to drink. Mmmm.

Last weekend we finally set up our tree. I’ve since had to put ornaments back on a thousand times thanks to trouble maker 2 year old and fix branches once due to a certain 4 year old falling into the tree. How does that even happen?

I came across my old Where’s Waldo books in the basement. We had fun hunting for Waldo together. Do you remember those books? I totally skipped the last page of the final book that is full of just Waldo’s … yeah, I don’t think so.

We also got our first bird feeder. We have regular visitors of three feathered varieties (chickadee, eastern phoebe and the black and white warbler) plus some fat squirrels. I never knew our squirrels were so huge before! You’d think we’ve been feeding them twinkies!

The squirrels are proving to be trouble makers. It started out with just one sneaking a snack. Then he told his twinkie eating squirrel friends. We had to raise the height of the feeder and even that didn’t help. I think we need the kind of bird feeder that flings the squirrel off. You’ve seen the video right? If not, search for squirrel bird feeder videos on YouTube.

In other news… lil man turned 3 months old this week. Where has the time gone? It really doesn’t feel possible he’s already that old. Time has definitely sped up with each kid which is super sad and scary.